Capitalizing nouns
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is "mein Name," and "the apple" is "der
Apfel." This helps you identify which are the nouns in a sentence.
Three grammatical genders, three types of nouns
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, "Frau" (woman) is feminine,
"Mann" (man) is masculine, and "Kind" (child) is neuter. The grammatical gender may not match the
biological gender: "Mdchen" (girl) is a neuter noun.
It is very important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts of German sentences change
depending on the gender of their nouns.
Generally speaking, the definite article "die" (the) and the indefinite article "eine" (a/an) are used for
feminine nouns, "der" and "ein" for masculine nouns, and "das" and "ein" for neuter nouns. For example, it
is "die Frau," "der Mann," and "das Kind." However, later you will see that this changes depending on
something called the "case of the noun."
masculine neuter feminine
indefinite (a/an) ein Mann ein Mdchen eine Frau
definite (the) der Mann das Mdchen die Frau
Conjugations of the verb sein (to be)
A few verbs like "sein" (to be) are completely irregular, and their conjugations simply need to be
memorized:
German English
ich bin I am
du bist you (singular informal) are
er/sie/es ist he/she/it is
wir sind we are
ihr seid you (plural informal) are
sie sind they are
German English
Sie sind you (formal) are
Conjugating regular verbs
Verb conjugation in German is more challenging than in English. To conjugate a regular verb in the present
tense, identify the invariant stem of the verb and add the ending corresponding to any of the grammatical
persons, which you can simply memorize:
trinken (to drink)
English person ending German example
I -e ich trinke
you (singular informal) -st du trinkst
he/she/it -t er/sie/es trinkt
we -en wir trinken
you (plural informal) -t ihr trinkt
you (formal) -en Sie trinken
they -en sie trinken
Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending as "you (formal)."
Umlauts
Umlauts are letters (more specifically vowels) that have two dots above them and appear in some German
words like "Mdchen." Literally, "Umlaut" means "around the sound," because its function is to change how
the vowel sounds.
An umlaut can sometimes indicate the plural of a word. For example, the plural of "Mutter" (mother) is
"Mtter." It might even change the meaning of a word entirely. That's why it's very important not to ignore
those little dots.
No continuous aspect
In German, there's no continuous aspect, i.e. there are no separate forms for "I drink" and "I am drinking".
There's only one form: Ich trinke.
There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!
When translating into English, how can I tell whether to use the simple (I drink) or the continuous form (I
am drinking)?
Unless the context suggests otherwise, either form should be accepted.
Generic vs. specific (German is not Spanish or French)
Just like in English, using or dropping the definite article makes the difference between specific and generic.
I like bread = Ich mag Brot (bread in general)
I like the bread = Ich mag das Brot (specific bread)
It gets more complicated when it comes to abstract nouns, but we'll see about that later.
